SPER’s Executive Committee is comprised of eight officers and includes a President, a President-Elect, an Immediate Past-President, a Secretary, a Treasurer, four Members-at-Large, a Student Representative, and an International Representative. The 2022 Elections will include voting for the following positions:

President-Elect
Secretary
Member-at-Large to chair the SPER Equity Advisory Board
Student Representative

2022 Members of SPER are entitled to one vote per category. Learn more about the candidates below.

Voting will conclude on May 13, 2022.

President-Elect

Penelope (Penny) P. Howards, PhD (she/her/hers)

Associate Professor
Department of Epidemiology
Rollins School of Public Health
Emory University

If elected, I would be delighted to serve as President of SPER, a society that has played a formative role in my career. I have been attending SPER annual meetings for over 20 years since I was a student, and I previously served as a member-at-large on the Executive Committee. Each year I am impressed by the quality of the research presented and the feeling of community at the annual meeting, even as we temporarily moved to a virtual format. Read more

Edwina Yeung, PhD (she/her/hers)

Senior Investigator and Acting Branch Chief
Epidemiology Branch, Division of Population Health Research
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

I am honored to be asked to run for SPER president. I’ve been a member since my postdoc, over a decade ago. SPER has always been a scientific home for my growth and development as a perinatal epidemiologist and I appreciate the opportunity to give back to the organization that has meant so much to my own professional development. Read more

I have served in various SPER roles from chairing symposia to assisting on the program committee and I was especially honored to have received the SPER Rising Star award in 2015. Reflecting on my nomination, I would like to use a recent mentoring example to give you a glimpse of how I would use this platform should I be privileged to serve. I recently shared an article from Harvard Business Review (2014) titled, “Why Women Don’t Apply for Jobs Unless They’re 100% qualified” with my fellows to help them transition into the workforce. The same research is also cited in a 2021 article in Fast Company (a tech magazine) titled, “Dear female job seeker: Apply for the job, ignore the ‘qualifications’.” (Btw I highly suggest these as good reads for women AND men, applicants AND supervisors.) The notion that women (or men) didn’t apply for jobs unless they felt they could check off all the boxes was astonishing to me, but my female friends outside of Epi felt exactly the same way. I realized that I just grew up very differently, having a strong “tiger” mom who is 5 feet tall (on a good day) making demands of anybody she desires to get the outcome she wants, and bucking trends early, working in “IT” before the field even existed. My father worked in HR and told me early on not to disqualify myself from opportunities. This checkbox “blindness” led me to apply for my first real Epi job even though the preferred qualifications included proficiency with PowerPoint, which I “developed” quickly with my roommate’s PowerPoint! I also went into the field of perinatal epidemiology despite having a degree in Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology from Hopkins. Bringing this story to my potential service as President, I cannot check off “qualifying” prior service – secretary/treasury/member-at-large – nor even student rep! But I know that I bring to the table diversity of thought, dedication to the field of perinatal/pediatric epidemiology and a supreme passion for mentorship that ultimately makes SPER great. Even with this candidacy statement, I hope that one student is inspired to apply for that “dream” job and that I helped remove a career barrier. That’s the platform that I would run on. The presidency is a fleeting moment of service, but I plan to infuse that service not just with pediatric/perinatal epidemiology, but with the science of career development. I’ll work to bolster networking events since we’ve lost so much these past two years being remote – efforts that can truly help this generation of trainees navigate the job market as well as inspiring senior leaders wanting to diversify their teams to ultimately do better perinatal and pediatric epidemiology.

Member-at-Large to Chair the SPER Equity Advisory Board

Bola Grace, MSc, PhD, MBA (she/her/hers)

Institute for Women’s Health
Faculty of Population Health Sciences
University College London

Dr Bola Grace has extensive experience in women’s health across multiple sectors. She values collaborative research into a variety of topics including reproductive epidemiology, digital health, gender and health inequalities. Read more

Stephanie Leonard, PhD, MS (she/her/hers)

Instructor
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Stanford University School of Medicine
California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative
https://profiles.stanford.edu/stephanie-leonard

I’ve been an active member of SPER since I was a doctoral student, including serving as the Student Representative and on the Program Committee (2018-2019), on the Outreach Committee (2019-2021), and on the recently established Equity Advisory Board (2021 to present). Read more

Secretary

Helen B. Chin, PhD (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor
Department of Global and Community Health
George Mason University

I would be honored to serve as SPER Secretary. SPER and its members have provided me with mentorship, networking, and research opportunities – all of which have nurtured my development as a reproductive epidemiologist.

Currently, I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and Community Health at George Mason University. My research is focused on investigating endocrine disrupting exposures that adversely affect the reproductive health of women and girls. Read more

Student Representative Candidates

Menolly Kaufman, MPH (she/her/hers)

Epidemiology PhD candidate
Oregon Health & Science University – Portland State University School of Public Health

Senior Research Associate
Center for Health Systems Effectiveness at Oregon Health & Science University

I am honored to be nominated for the Student Representative (2022-2023) position at the Society of Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research (SPER). Read more

I would be humbled and eager to serve on the SPER Executive Committee alongside a group of dedicated and diverse epidemiologists to represent students and trainees at all career stages.

I am a passionate perinatal epidemiologist and PhD candidate at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) – Portland State University (PSU) School of Public health. Prior to entering my doctoral program, I received my MPH in epidemiology at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. After my master’s program, I worked at Mathematica Policy Research and a Medicaid Payer. In addition to my doctoral studies, I am a senior research associate at the Center for Health Systems Effectiveness at OHSU and a lecturer in epidemiology for the MPH@GW program. Both my doctoral and “day job” research focus on how health policies and healthcare system affect maternal morbidity and well-being.

This position excites me because I would love to plan, support, and execute virtual and in-person events that are relevant and engaging for SPER as a whole and for students/trainees especially. At the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, my favorite event of the year is our annual research conference – a public facing event showcasing student public health research. I have served as co-chair for the annual conference for the past three years. I am passionate about lifting up the transformative research and public practice work of our student body, inviting keynote speakers, and organizing student volunteers. I look forward to bringing this depth of experience to planning the Advanced Methods workshop for the SPER Annual Meeting in 2023. I promise to engage with and listen to a diverse group of trainees to ensure that we host an event that is methodologically rigorous and relevant to advancing equity within our field.

Serving on the SPER Executive Committee as the Student Representative (2022-2023) would truly be an honor. I hope you will consider supporting my candidacy.